Building a BBQ pit

Fire it up!

There's nothing like a good barbecue in the summer. My father-in-law, Laverne, used to cook his homegrown chickens in a fire pit in his yard whenever the family had a party. Those chickens were incredibly tasty.

Barbecue pits aren't that difficult to build. You can make them any size you want, but most are at least 24 inches in diameter and 18 inches deep. Grab some friends, a beverage of choice, and put the barbeque pit together in an afternoon.

You want to build it close to the house, so it's handy to run in and out, but not too close to low-hanging trees or structures that could go up in smoke. Kevin Cunningham owns an outdoor kitchen company, and says after you've chosen your site, go buy the accessories you want for it.

"You really need to think about this thing before you build it," Cunningham says. "If you say to yourself, 'I want an in-ground pit but I want a rotisserie,' great. My suggestion would be go ahead, and let's find the rotisserie motor, let's find the motorized spit first. Now you've got your dimensions. You know what you can put on there, you know how much weight you can put on there, and then you can kind of think about your structure."